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LITERARY CRITICISM OF ENSNARED

Revolutionary Ideology: A Critical Review of John B. Beloved’s film titled: ENSNARED.

By Barrister Florence Iroye

‘Ensnared’, a movie written and Produced by Pastor John Babalola BELOVED, {Belovedjohn}, opens with Domino, a type of Satan, who arrogantly invades the earthly realm, boasting threateningly against the Lord’s saints. We see him as a ferocious warlord rallying his army against the opposing army.

Let me first highlight the two opposing armies:

The Anti-Anointed Army

The antagonist army of Domino stands for devil’s anti-anointed troops. This army is represented by Lord Thorn, Captain Terror, and Ms. Honey, {also known as Chioma, a human diplomat on mission to bring down Deinde and Ken Rex}. It also includes members of Lord Dynasty such as Lord Martins and Chief Gbade.

Domino, the commanding antagonist has the following war exploits to his credits:

*The entrapping and ruin of Deinde through extramarital affairs with Grace, Gloria, Mercy, Rita and Chioma. *The destruction of Ken Rex’s ministry through the instrumentality of his wife. *The sexual assaults of Grace, Gloria, Mercy and Rita through the instrumentality of pastor Deinde. *The ensnaring of Bola by her own headiness and desperation, via Lord Martins. *The capture of Lord Martins by the cult of Dynasty Lords, and the subsequent blindness/hardness of his heart against gospel invite. *The boisterous marriage of Lord Martins and Bola. *The marital delay suffers by Adeola

The Anointed Army

The Lord’s army of the anointed saints is represented by five generals: Pastor Deinde, Evangelist Ken Rex, Evang. Charles, Dr. Ruth, and Adeola. It also includes Florence, Dcns Bola and Bar. Timothy. The anointed army is divided into two: the anointed conservative and the anointed revolutionary. Both are Domino’s prime targets.

The Anointed Conservative

Deinde, Dcns Bola, Grace represents the anointed conservative.

DEINDE: Deinde, the central character faces his first trouble when his church elders’ revolt against the God’s message, delivered by Adeola. This revolt is spearheaded by Chief Gbade, an officer of Lord Dynasty, who vehemently work against anything spiritual in the church, to protect his occult interest. This is the starting point of the defeat of Deinde. Because of this notable weakness, and the subsequent results, Florence goes through lots of emotional trauma and physical distress.

Deinde’s lackadaisical attitude to spiritual omen is so glaring. We see it first when strange vultures invade his home-garden and go away with some of his chickens. He simply hisses and dismisses it with indifference.

Also, Deinde only muster shallow resistance to Chioma’s flirting dive on his lap. Chioma has come visiting him when his wife, Florence, travels to the United Kingdom. The visit is mission driven and, if Pastor Deinde has been spiritually at alert, eh would have detected it. But when the agent Chioma gets victory over her target in the ‘test-runs’ battle because Pastor Deinde offers a superficial resistance to her open but delicate invasion. Such shallow resistance is quite unbecoming of a leading clergy of his caliber. I must say this emphatically, Deinde’s cold resistance actually emboldens Chioma to move to the next stage of action – transmission the fumes of sexual flirt; the strange sexual fumes that tragically breaks Deinde off-guard and drives him on shamelessly sexual adventure. That a man of his spiritual caliber could descend so low to impregnating and aborting for several young ladies Grace, Gloria and Rita; and, including teenagers such as Mercy, a 13 years’ old. All this tells us how horrible a captive he’s become. Chioma later moves to a third stage – imparting the hottest flame of sexual addiction. She must have achieved this through employment of both monetary gift and undue intimacy. Then the fourth and the last stage – arrow of strange illness and death.

LORD MARTINS: Lord Martins characterizes typical conservative, greedy African politician. We see him in diverse lights: as bold, clever deceiver who lured Bola into marriage relationship; as oppressive bourgeoisie; as corrupt, materialistic politician; as heartless husband and father; and as occult politician cum ritual cannibal.

Martins’ greed for power leads him to cultism, occult, and cannibalism. His greed for power is the bane of his untamed desperation for political office, occult membership, human ritualism, marital violence, and others. He is a prominent member of the Lord Dynasty, an underground cannibal cult of wealthy aristocrats, political bigwigs, and bourgeois. Lord Martins lost his second term governorship ticket of his party because he couldn’t submit his fervently praying wife to the Lords Dynasty for ritual sacrifice. This is the root of his running battles with his wife, Dcns Bola.

He represents all African rulers who are ensnared by their own unruly passions, who are deep into various diabolical wickedness just for power and wealth. He also represents the clever unconverted folks who invade churches to ‘capture’ morally sound, spiritual people for marriage, by art of pretense, manipulation and intricacy.

DCNS BOLA: Dcns Bola is the conservative, fervent praying wife of Lord Martins. On one hand, her conservative inner self leads her to an avoidable marital relationship, only to regret later. On the other hand, her praying fervency becomes a bottleneck to her husband’s occult missions and ritual practices. For Bola, Lord Martins is the snare, though gets ensnared because she turned deaf ear to all sound warnings. It is conservative to give in to frustration, desperation, and obstinacy in the days of marital crisis. Adeola faces the same plight but refuses to give in to frustration. The Ensnared of Dcns Bola and her painful marital adversity in the hand of Lord Martins is more of her makings, than of the enemy.

The Anointed Revolutionary

Ken Rex, Adeola, Evang Charles, and Dr. Ruth represents the anointed revolutionary.

ADEOLA: The character of Adeola is that of a revolutionary icon. She is spirit filled with functioning spiritual eye. The young lady becomes Domino’s number one headache for seeing and unveiling every of his evil intrigues. In her spiritual radical revolutionary mission, she wages strategic warfare against Domino’s kingdom, and, by divine leading, wisely offers spiritual guidance.

KEN REX: Ken Rex is the leading revolutionary force in the film. With the cooperation of his church elders, he was able to carry out the divine assignment, and by so doing thwart the satanic plot. This provides the baseline for his aftermath victory.

Ken Rex’s fiery spiritual disposition is radical. For example, when he sees in some strange birds gathering for a meeting in a trance, he reacts violently with the fervency of the Spirit and scatter them at once.

His violent reactionary disposition to enemy’s subtle move and operation is highly inspiring, as seeing in his rebuke of Chioma when she visits his office to test-run the war bullet. Ken is so firm and Spirit directing that the ‘test-run romance’ fails to shame agent Chioma.

The fiery, revolutionary evangelist unfortunately married a satanic marine spirit as wife, who regularly denies him sex and food, oppresses him with demonically, and wages violate wars against his ministry, among others. In all these, Ken Rex emerges victoriously.

EVANGELIST CHARLES: The revolutionary character of Evangelist Charles represents the ministry of spiritual leadership and mentorship in the film. He plays the role of mentorship for both Ruth and Ken Rex. He functions as a prophetic evangelist in his ministry to Lord Martins.

DR. RUTH: Dr. Ruth stands for unsung revolutionary hero. Her medical practice is driven by her soul-winning vision of silent but radical ministry. Her habit is to take more serious cases to her spiritual father, Evang. Charles to handle. We see her ministering to Lord Martins, a proud occult member and politician. She eventually leads him to her mentor to handle, because of the seriousness of his case.

DEUMAN: Deuman is God’s speaking voice amidst human cries and crises. He plays multiple roles of a mystery man who appears as Angel, Mechanic, and crazy guys in the movie. His radical delivery of the divine inspiration to Adeola and Pastor Deinde is revolutionary.

FLORENCE: She is the fervent praying wife of Pastor Deinde. By dispositions, she is calm, spiritual, fervent, emotional, and forgiving. These virtues, couple with her firmness in faith and relationship with God, symbolizes her a good, revolutionary pastor’s wife, who in spite of all that she goes through, refuses to lose her spiritual and moral relevance.

Didactic Values

Didactically, we all, especially gospel ministers, have certain basic lessons to learn here.”

– That leading a lukewarm, nonspiritual team of elders can lead to great tragedy for any anointed of God. Work on your church leaders. For it takes iron to sharpen iron. Church leaders need to fill their leadership train with spiritual minded people. Not moneybags. Not educated nonspiritual.

– That it is vital to get rid of spiritual laxity and lethargy and cultivate spiritual sensitivity. We should all emulate the spiritual fervency of Ken Rex and quit the spiritual dullness of Deinde. Spiritual laxity can only make you a victim of war. There is the need to imbibe the spiritual radical revolutionary of Ken Rex, Adeola, Evang. Charles and others. It is a fundamental key to becoming the victor.

– That spiritual mentorship is needed by all believers, most especially gospel ministers. In the film, Dr. Ruth and Ken Rex have Evang. Charles as their mentor and spiritual father. And that goes a long way to help their spiritual guidance, stability and triumphs.

– In nutshell, the writer and producer, have a golden tagline for all and sundry. Here is it: “To ascend the heights of glory, you must break the snares.”

The sound tract puts it this way:

“There are glories we will display.

There are heights we will attain.

There are wonders we proclaim.

If we escape the snares.”

Here is my prayer for all who watch this movie: “May you have sufficient grace and unction to escape the snares in Jesus’ name.” Amen.

Literary Criticism Written by

BARRISTER FLORENCE IROYE

{Barrister Florence was the Project Reviewer during ENSNARED premiere February 29, at Dominion Baptist Church, Agege.}

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